A Poem after Class

Aloha - I took a brief class from the Red Cross in International Humanitarian Law. I wrote this during class.


Caught up in the tides of history,
I am no longer am what or who I was.
But then, no one is.

Beliefs shattered, remade, forged,
behind these walls of stone or flesh or blood or mind,
I was not a warrior, who visited death upon others nor did it visit me.

Then, swept up in the tides and spoils of war,
I succumbed to the pull of circumstance and violence visited upon me.
War was an unwelcome visitor whom I tried to bar at the door with my tears.

All too soon it became my most intimate companion.
It became my wife, my lover, my succubus, a brother, a sister, a father and mother. Cradled at the breast of war I soon knew naught else.

Yet it was, is and remains my abhorrence.
I deny violence yet am capable of it.
Give me a gun of paper,
I will write you to death.
Give me a gun of steel and I will, I will, I will . . . .

Who are you to take the life of the ones I love,
my son, daughter, lover and wife and mother, father, brother and sister.

Who are you? Shiva Death the destroyer of worlds?
Let anyone who thinks they cannot kill,
the blood of the ones they love upon their breast.
The choice to kill determines the path they will write upon their dying heart.

Blessed are the Peacemakers for I know them not yet I shiver in hope that the path of peace is upon us as the blessing of Allah.